Chapter Curses to Cut Blocks with a Razor of C by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Cussedness Ungainliness; perversity, an evil temper; malice prepense. Halliwell gives cuss = surly.

"The turkey-cock is just as likely as not to trample on the young turkeys and smash them, or to split their skulls by a savage dig of his powerful beak. Whether this is `cussedness' pure and simple ... has not been satisfactorily determined" - Daily News, December 22nd, 1885.

Custard A slap on the hand with a ferula. The word should be custid, unless a play is meant. (Latin, custis, a club or stick.)

Custard Coffin (See Coffin .)

Customer A man or acquaintance. A rum customer is one better left alone, as he is likely to show fight if interfered with. A shop term. (See Card.)

"Here be many of her old customers."
Shakespeare: Measure for Measure, iv. 3.

Custos Rotulorum (keeper of the rolls). The chief civil officer of a county, to whose custody are committed the records or rolls of the sessions.

Cut To renounce acquaintance. There are four sorts of cut -
   (1) The cut direct is to stare an acquaintance in the face and pretend not to know him.
   (2) The cut indirect, to look another way, and pretend not to see him.
   (3) The cut sublime, to admire the top of some tall edifice or the clouds of heaven till the person cut has passed by.
   (4) The cut infernal, to stoop and adjust your boots till the party has gone past.
   There is a very remarkable Scripture illustration of the word cut, meaning to renounce: "Jehovah took a staff and cut it asunder, in token that He would break His covenant with His people; and He cut another staff asunder, in token that He would break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel" (Zech. xi, 7-14).

Cut
   Cut and come again. Take a cut from the joint, and come for another if you like.
   To cut the ground from under one (or from under his feet). To leave an adversary no ground to stand on, by disproving all his arguments.
   He has cut his eye-teeth. He is wide awake, he is a knowing one. The eye-teeth are the canine teeth, just under the eyes, and the phrase means he can bite as well as bark. Of course, the play is on the word "eye," and those who have cut their eye-teeth are wide awake.
   Cut your wisdom teeth. Wisdom teeth are those at the extreme end of the jaws, which do not make their appearance till persons have come to years of discretion. When persons say or do silly things, the remark is made to them that "they have not yet cut their wisdom teeth," or reached the years of discretion.
   Cut the knot. Break through an obstacle. The reference is to the Gordian knot (q.v.) shown to Alexander, with the assurance that whoever loosed it would be made ruler of all Asia, whereupon the Macedonian cut it in two with his sword, and claimed to have fulfilled the prophecy.
   I must cut my stick - i.e. leave. The Irish usually cut a shillelah before they start on an expedition. Punch gives the following witty derivation: - "Pilgrims on leaving the Holy Land used to cut a palm-stick, to prove that they had really been to the Holy Sepulchre. So brother Francis would say to brother Paul, `Where is brother Benedict?' `Oh (says Paul), he has cut his stick!' - i.e. he is on his way home."
   I'll cut your comb for you. Take your conceit down. The allusion is to the practice of cutting the combs of capons.
   He'll cut up well. He is rich, and his property will cut into good slices.

Cut Blocks with a Razor (To). To do something astounding by insignificant means; to do something more eccentric than inexpedient. According to Dean Swift, to "make pincushions of sunbeams." The tale is that Accius, or Attus Navius, a Roman augur, opposed the king Tarquin the Elder, who wished to double the number of senators. Tarquin, to throw ridicule on the angur, sneered at his pretensions of augury, and asked him if he could do what was then in his thoughts. "Undoubtedly," replied Navius; and Tarquin with a laugh, said, "Why, I was thinking whether I could cut through this whetstone with a razor." "Cut boldly," cried Navius, and the whetstone was cleft in two. This story forms the subject of one of Bon Gaultier's ballads, and Goldsmith refers to it in his Retaliation:

"In short, `twas his [Burke's] fate, unemployed or in place, sir,
To eat mutton cold, and cut blocks with a razor"